I spent a week in Hong Kong on the same trip that took me to Seoul. I’m rarely wowed by a city these days but Hong Kong really blew me away. What an amazing place.

True, I was set-up in a great hotel on the island with a view of the harbour and, true, the weather was great while I was there – people tell me that summer in the city is hell. But every city has its bad seasons. Paris isn’t exactly Rio, and I grew-up in Canada where the entire population has convinced themselves that a few months of slush is a good thing since “seasons are important”. (This is not true.)

It wasn’t just the nice weather after a week of smoggy, hazy Seoul, that convinced me that I could easily live in HK. There are very, very few safe and vibrant cities in the world where you can walk to work in the morning, eat at a world-class restaurant for lunch, go hiking or lie on a beautiful beach in the afternoon, order fish at an unpretentious seaside restaurant in the early evening, then bar hop and hit the clubs until dawn. The city, the people, the green… I had no idea that the place was so green. There are even carefully designed clusters of ex-pats bars designed to keep drunk Brits out of the better parts of the city. Key.

I’m slowly discovering Asia, or at least its big cities. Why did I wait so long? I’m an urban Asia convert. Singapore and Malaysia soon.. and then hopefully Tokyo at some stage?

There is one bad thing about Hong Kong: the music. The Canto-pop revolution is still in full swing and most if it is so cheesy to my ears that it’s not even worth an ironic post. Luckily I played pétanque the other day – yes, with a Ricard in hand amidst the bobos of the Bassin de la Villette – with a girl who grew-up in Hong Kong. She gave me a few tips, a couple of which we’ll hear today.

My Little Airport is a Hong Kong duo who’ve released three albums since 2004. They’re “cute” but good. We’ll hear four tracks from each of their three albums plus one from a 2004 Hong Kong indie mix that I picked-up somewhere.

PixelToy is another Hong Kong girl-guy duo with a similar sound to My Little Airport. They have a couple LPs out. We’ll hear a song from each, including a fun Love Will Tear Me Apart cover, plus another from a mix that their label put out back in 2004.

My Little Airport – Edward, Had You Ever Thought That The End of The World Would Come On 20.9.91
My Little Airport – 悲傷的採購 (digilick remix)
My Little Airport – 悲伤的采购
My Little Airport – Romantic Kowloon Tong
PixelToy – Beautiful
PixelToy – Good Morning
PixelToy – Love Will Tear Us Apart